Zhanna
by lostloveloki
Summary: The offspring of a widow and a super soldier would no doubt be beautiful. Natasha's mind wandered slowly, imagining the flaming hair, it's intense, deep eyes… Strength, agility, beauty, stealth… a threat to be reckoned with…
1. Chapter 1

Cold water slapped against her face repeatedly as she tried to process the events of the day.

Her partner was on the run, and her mentor was killed at the hands of the Winter soldier- no. Not that name. The winter soldier was what the intelligence community called him, but not her. It was the wrong name. He wasn't that anymore. Not to her. He was so much more than that title could ever express about him.

He was her Vanya.

Bleary eyed for the first time in decades, she didn't notice that she had touched her lower abdomen as she dried her face.

Vanya had once been everything to her. Master, teacher, friend, lover, and soul mate. He was the absolute embodiment of the type of attachments a Black Widow was bound not to have by the codex. A widow was not supposed to dare. And yet she had. She had foolishly dared to hope, dared to dream, dared to imagine. Yet no physical or mental torture of the world could compare to the blow she suffered when he came back after an extended disappearance.

Natasha suppressed the urge to chew on her lip or else, play with her hands, both being traits of impatience and nervousness- traits which could give her away. She stood rigid, waiting for him in room 320, for their debriefing, staring straight ahead. She lazily picked up the file, flicking through it, the pages passing in a blur as she couldn't focus on a single detail. The papers shook slightly as her finger drummed against the back of the file in rhythm with her heart. She could feel its usually steady beat quicken to something akin to the rush of adrenaline, at the prospect of being with him again.

The clock ticked along idly, its empty promises bouncing off the walls, and building a pillar of unease within her stomach. Taking a deep breath she tried to read the file again but failed a second time, before setting it down on the desk again.

Just then, the door clicked open and Agent Krakoff led him in.

Vanya didn't display any emotions, and though that was not unusual by any stretch of the imagination, Natasha felt her hairs stand on end as his gaze swept over her like an unimportant inanimate object, waiting to be discarded. The soulful, often tortured, eyes she had spent hours reading, during their moments of stolen solace and sanctuary, were blank and dull.

Dark with the loss of something crucial.

She barely noticed that Agent Krakoff was explaining the situation to them, merely nodding at the appropriate times. Her eyes kept flicking towards Vanya, questions burning through her brain like a branding iron. As soon as Krakoff left, she spun around eagerly and whispered affectionately.

"Vanya."

His grim features didn't change as he slowly turned his dull gaze onto her, fixed with complete indifference.

"Who the hell is Vanya?"

She knelt before the toilet clutching the bowl desperately as she threw up the contents of her breakfast. She knelt there for several minutes, panting uselessly as her mind rest upon the only explanation for her new chronic illness. Her usually controlled body shook with panic as the reality of the situation struck her.

She would pay the price of her love after all.

He must never know. /They/ must never know, she had thought with agony stabbing at her heart. The child of a widow would spend its life secluded in the red room, being sculpted into the perfect killing machines. A job which was perfect for her and Vanya, but even Natalia Romanova had scruples when it came to an innocent little child. A child not irreparably scarred and dripping with blood of others… And yet...the offspring of a widow and a super soldier would no doubt be beautiful. Natasha's mind wandered slowly,blunted with numbness still, as she began imagining the flaming hair, it's intense, deep eyes… It's strength, agility, beauty, stealth… it would be a threat to be reckoned with…

She snapped out of it as the bathroom door opened, and someone walked into the adjoining cubicle. No. She couldn't do it. No matter how perfect it would be, it would develop into a soulless monster in the gleeful hands of the red room. No. There was only one way forward.

The child had to die.

She stared into the mirror, and her hand contorted into a claw as he practically tasted the sterilized reek of the cream coloured hospital walls on her tongue. The mere thought of that place caused her to shudder.

The hospital was just like any other hospital: Sterile, brimming with an onslaught of patients, and teeming with priests to read the last rites. But the section the priests never came near, or perhaps didn't know about, was the little clinic for women specializing in abortions. Natasha wore her breezy bathrobe, head resting upon her pillow, facing straight up at the ceiling. The nurse turned the knob on the drip and prepared a needle to inject a foreign substance into her blood stream.

The woman spoke some instructions but Natasha didn't hear any of it, as the memory of /her/ Vanya's face filled her restless mind. His soft, adoring expression when his lips had parted and he'd filled her, his metal hand twisting the headboard, so he wouldn't crush her in his ecstasy. "Natalia… beautiful Natalia…" he'd whispered like a prayer. "Malysh… "

Her blood curdling scream filled the hospital wing.

She forged fake documents, claiming that she was out on a six month mission, travelling the world trying to catch an oligarch who opposed the current government. With the help of a faked signature of a senile member of the KGB, she disappeared. But this time it was for good. The only reason she had remained so long was because of Vanya, but every time they met, he knew less and less. He wasn't her Vanya. He was just something. Someone she used to know.

She didn't scream when the time came to pass. She didn't writhe in agony like many before her and many after her. She simply stared ahead with determination, staring down the doctor as she pushed. The pain was intense and real, like nothing her training had prepared her for, but it was just physical pain. She could endure it. Thus, it came to pass, that the only scream that rang through the sterilized room was that of a little babe, with tufts of pale red hair plastered against its forehead. Its fragile arms reached out as it turned red with its energetic little screams.

Immediately the nurse rushed to take care of the bundle, but before she could be laid in Natasha's arms, Natasha passed out with exhaustion.

Natasha woke up in a relatively comfortable hospital bed in the maternity wing. Someone had cleaned her up, and a squirming babe awaited in the arms of the brunette young nurse, barely old enough to have completed her training.

"What is her name?" the nurse asked, bringing the little girl to Natalia's awaiting arms. She blinked in surprise as she noticed her own outstretched arms. Natasha took the baby gingerly, looking down upon the little child's curious chocolate eyes and smiled weakly.

"A girl you say?" she whispered, afraid of scaring the child, who automatically curled up in her arms.

"A healthy little girl with ten fingers, ten toes, and a beautiful head of hair," the nurse beamed, clearly smitten already. Natasha's lips quivered as her eyes focused on the exact replica of the eyes she had fallen in love with. The child groped for Natasha's breast.

"Oh!"

"She's hungry," the nurse remarked.

Natasha blinked away her tears as the nurse turned away to check her drip, and pulled out her breast. The girl immediately latched on and drank vigorously. Natasha's grip tightened fractionally, holding her close to her heart and filled with wonder for the first time in her life.

"Zhanna," she whispered, pain and joy echoing in her voice.

"Excuse me?"

"Zhanna. That's her name."

"What an unusual name," the nurse remarked, but continued to smile without a care in the world. "Is she named after a friend or family member?" she pried, shuffling to take a look at the medical chart.

Natasha shut her eyes and finally allowed a tear to trickle down her cheek as she answered bitter sweetly, "After her dead father."

Natasha left the women's bathroom and looked at a picture she had encrypted and locked away on her phone. It was the photo of a young red-haired woman, beaming and being crushed by her adoptive family as she stood in her graduation gown, with the markings of a class valedictorian. A beatific smile graced her features. It was nearly the most beautiful smile Natasha had ever seen, second only to her Vanya's.


	2. Chapter 2

The man who had spent decades living without a true name, but solely with the misery of a codename, sought out the only ray of hope he had in finding his past: the Smithsonian. Though it had been his most promising lead, it only showed him what his target, the Captain, had already revealed during their stand-off. Once upon a time they had trusted each other, they had even been friends, all as part of an old kinship they had developed as children. But despite it all the Winter Sol- No. James. James, he reminded himself over and over again. That was his name. His true name…

Yes, James Buchanan Barnes.

James' past was his own past, but he was no longer Bucky. He was not a fresh-faced boy with happy dreams for the future, and a protector complex. He was a stone-cold killer, and a monster.

But even monsters have the right to find out who they are.

After the dead-end in Washington DC, James travelled the world seeking the demons of his past. He'd stumble over former allies, former enemies, former partners, all of whom quivered with fear at the sight of him. With a little gentle persuasion with his bionic arm, the trail of bread crumbs from the information leakage by SHIELD and the chunkier pieces of meat from his close encounters, all led him to Russia, back to Hydra's secret training basis- disguised as part of the KGB. Since the fall of the Nazi empire, Hydra had not merely infiltrated SHIELD and grown to a mounting threat within it's service, it had infiltrated every major secret service agency in the world with its poisonous agenda. The cold war, and countless other international conflicts were the fruits of Hydra's tree, in an attempt to launch world war III, which only faltered because Hydra politicians had failed to rise to sufficient political power within the individual states.

James cursed in Russian under his breath, and threw a stack of papers away. Within the discarded pile lay the true details about the assassinations of major political figures on both sides of the cold war, and other top secret government projects- and yet none of them contained what he wanted to know. Wrenching another drawer open he grabbed a new stack and read his way through those sheets. As the hours progressed, he had read more international secrets than any man ought to be burdened with, but he continued relentlessly until he finally stumbled upon the Winter Soldier files. He flicked through his file slowly, savouring the details, and simply kicking the heads of the unconscious guards every time they stirred, before returning to his seat, completely unperturbed.

Most details were completely unsurprising and obvious to any observer. Yes, he was a lab project. Yes, he had his memory wiped multiple times. Yes, he was the only survivor of the study. It was only as he read deeper into the file that he finally uncovered the truth of why they wiped his memory.

It seemed that in his career, he'd started off as a weapon's experiment, to see whether cybernetic technology could indeed be implemented onto humans, without killing them of blood poisoning, but after several months of brainwashing, physiotherapy, and training, he had become the perfect marionette for Hydra. He never second-guessed commands; he was hard, fast and precise. He was an ideal assassin. But soon, Hydra realized that perfection was a problem too. He didn't ask questions, and so he had learned to disregard any survival instinct he had ever possessed, an attribute which forced them to assign partners to their most valuable asset. During his first two decades, they partnered him with trusted individuals, who had proven their skills on the field many times over.

But they still didn't last long. Each death date appeared only months after the assignment of their partnerships, even though he hadn't killed a single one of them. James' eyes bulged as he beheld the dozens of pages, filled with dead partners.

He flipped through the list, searching for survivors who might tell him about their assignments, and yet he could only find a single one. A single partnership which had not only outlasted six months, but had indeed lasted over ten years, even if the first couple of years were spent training her to be his ideal consort in battle. She was a product of the red room, a harvested murderer, just like him, but with the additional skills of a seductress and whore. Her additional skills allowed her to make the more fine-tuned behind-closed-doors investigations, while he took care of the stealthy assassinations, in lieu with her work. Together they had taken out oil tycoons, political figures, and Mafia figure-heads. She had caught political prisoners, been the head of several interrogations, and even bested Volkoff in a battle of wits, playing out his superiority complex to her advantage… Indeed, this special partner was recorded to have bested him during training sessions. Despite all these accolades and intensely fascinating details about the partnership of winter and widow, the final line knocked the air out of his lungs: suspected affair with the Winter Soldier.

He lent back in the General's chair, and took a shaky breath as he saw the date of that entry. James immediately flipped back to the section of his first memory wipe.

They took everything from him. Everything he had left, just because they suspected he had an affair with some agent.

His metal arm curled around the armrest of the office chair, deforming and ripping it off. Absent-mindedly, he crushed it into a small ball of metal mesh. He rummaged through the room, and violently emptied the briefcase that lay beside the unconscious general, and stuffed his files into the briefcase. Recalling all the names involved in the Winter Soldier project, the memory cleanse, and those who had put him under surveillance, he extracted their files messily from the cabinets, ripping off the locks, and placing the information in his briefcase.

Furiously, he ripped out the last drawer, throwing everything that he didn't want, straight onto the floor.

Ra-ref-res-ro- romana… no Romanova.

Balancing the drawer in one hand, he opened the file single-handedly and felt his heart stop and the metal drawer clattered to the ground.

The woman on the photograph…

Shouts and calls starting coming from all over the hallway. Throwing the file into the briefcase, he deformed the window bars and leaped out, mentally planning out his next mission.


	3. Chapter 3

Soft jazz music hummed through the walls from her neighbour's flat as Natasha left the steamy bathroom in a fuzzy white bathrobe, drying her hair with a towel. Fat little droplets of water splattered onto the floor as she walked, following the trail of her fluffy red slippers. She hummed the familiar tune softly, trilling soft harmonies to the saxophone's melodious drone. Leaning down, she grabbed her book from the sofa, and squatted to take a seat.

"I didn't know you sang," a husky voice spoke in Russian. Natasha straightened up with her arms in a defensive position and spun around towards the entrance of dining room, where none other than Vanya stood. He had changed since their last encounter, no longer donning his gear, but dressed in a tight, navy blue shirt and dress pants for cover. He had cut his hair, presumably to attract less attention from those who sought him, and to be granted access into the apartment complex. If she hadn't known better, she would have guessed that the metal hand was a simple prosthetic, and not a fully –fledged bionic arm of the highest standards. He leant against the door frame, arms crossed across his chest, with a file of paper, and a calculated smirk on his lips.

"Why do you seek me out, Soldier?" she responded in a thick Russian accent, staring him down, as she calculated her chance of surviving dozens of escape plans.

"You have information, and I require it."

"Assassins don't need information, they need orders," she retorted, taking a calculated step back.

"Tell me, little traitor, why did you not mention we were partners? Your current partner, the Captain, spilled everything about our relationship the moment he saw me, and you… you tried to kill me."

"Unlike the captain, I don't reason with hit men. If someone is assigned to kill me, I kill them first." Her voice was acid, as she pulled a chair out and slowly took a seat.

He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "I do what I must. But you… No… your approach was sloppy at best. Not to the calibre of a Widow… No, your attack was personal… you wanted to hurt me… but not kill me. What was the reason behind it?"

"That's none of your business," she answered simply. He looked her once over, disbelief colouring his gaze as he straightened off the wall.

"You were my partner."

Natasha lowered her arms and glared at him menacingly. "No," she asserted, "I was born in nineteen seventy-"

"Cut the shit out." He pushed his shoulder off the wall and froze as she bent her knees and leant back. "I have your original files. You were born in nineteen forty-two, and were part of the super soldier project in the red room. Don't try to kid me like you kid the fools who believe that someone as highly-trained and experienced could be anything less than forty."

"I was n-"

He slammed her file onto the desk, and she drew an automatic rifle out from under the desk, pointing it straight at his forehead.

"Do not lie to me, Natalia. I trained you. I moulded you. I may not remember you, but I can recognize all of your tells. Your ear twitches, your nose flares. You are lying."

Her eyes narrowed, "That's what you think about while I point a gun to your head?"

"Shoot me if you want, but I want answers first." He moved to cross the distance between them, and she pulled the trigger.

She stared at the gun furiously as he sniggered.

"You ought to really take shorter baths. While you were pampering yourself with flowery bath pearls and whatnot I found all your hiding places. Every. Single. One." For the first time in decades she saw him smile, but it was not the tender smile of Vanya. There was something feral and fresh about it. A product of hard times. "You hid them in all the places I would put them myself…," he grabbed her neck,"Now I have all your ammunition…"

"You forgot one thing…" she choked, clawing at his metal arm.

"Oh?" With one flick of her wrist, the towel around her hair whipped his face, and she'd wrapped it around his neck in a strangle-hold.

He gasped, as a vision of her thighs wrapped around his neck flashed before his eyes. He was staring up at her triumphant, bare figure. Her hands stroked through his hair, coaxing his lips along her legs-

"Natya," he writhed falling to his knees as the memories slowly flooded back.

Caught off guard, she loosened her grip and stared at him. "Did you just-"

"It's true," he whispered in disbelief, his unfocused gaze on the floor. "We had an affair."

"Wha-"

"I remember." He gazed into thin air. "You never let me dominate you, you always needed to be in charge. You couldn't 'stand the thought of losing your autonomy. So you would ride me. An-and I would hold you and, you would whisper my name-," he paused, furrowing his brows. "What was my name? The name you called me… my true name?"

"Vanya."

Thick silence permeated the air, as the name bounced back and forth in his mind. The files had called him James, or they called him the Winter Soldier. James was a creature of the past, and the soldier a monster he no longer wished to be. But this name…

Moments flashed by. Joint missions, long nights of working together, long nights of fucking, long nights of making love… "I loved you," he whispered like a chastised child.

For a long time Natasha didn't answer, unsure of whether to trust him or not. How could she possibly know that he wasn't lying? That he wasn't playing her? She looked down at his lost face, and remembered the first time he had looked at her that way: the night he had confided that he didn't remember his life before the KGB. She remembered the way he broke down briefly and regained his composure as he pushed the thoughts away. When they had fucked that night, it had been the first time Natasha had felt a strange ease and intimacy with him.

"I know," Natasha answered, tentatively stepping closer and helplessly stroking his hair, assessing him closely for any lies. "But it could never last."

"Because they tore us apart."

She shook her head. "Because we could never find joint happiness. Not in our profession. Not the way we lived. Not with all the secrecy."

He shuffled uneasily, bending back so that he sat on his legs, gazing up at her.

"Nastya…"

"Yes?"

"I have spent so long not feeling... Make me feel," he answered simply, looking up at her, with child-like eyes. "I need to feel again, and you are the only one who can make me feel..."

Against her better judgement she pulled his face against her bathrobe, and pulled him up onto his feet. "Shall we talk about her past?"

He nodded.

"Now?"

He shook his head.

"Then… follow me." She opened her bathrobe and let it fall to the ground, alongside her towel. Wet red hair, stuck to her back as she sashayed to the bedroom. Waiting.


	4. Chapter 4

They lay in silence, the only sounds coming from the rhythmic slow stroke of his metal index finger over the swell of her hip. There was not even a steady tick of a clock in her room, with only the position of the moon giving away the time. He gazed down at her, smiling thoughtfully as she started dozing off in his arms. It had been weeks since they reignited their old flame, and those weeks had been the most natural weeks of his unnatural life.

The memories began trickling in one by one he recalled his old life with Natasha. The details of her official training, the details of his training in Russia, the intimate details of training her seduction skills by holding very applied courses in a motel one night. Then another. And another again…

For each confessed memory, her eyes would become unfocused as she recanted the moments from her perspective, anchoring every significant instance in his second life to Natasha. His features softened as she curled up against him and smiled in her sleep. Was there ever a woman quite like Nastya? So strong, so independent, so self-assured, so weak, so lonely, so lost at heart?

She told him about her defection, her desire to work for the greater good and not just targeting people based on shady reports, and she told him about her disappointment when she learned the truth about SHIELD thanks to their first encounter this decade.

She spilled pieces of her heart to him, in exchange for pieces of his.

"For a long time I dreamt of a woman," he admitted the week after they had reconnected.

"Oh?" she murmured, running her hands through his hair, pinching it and staring at the sweat that then coated her fingers.

"I dreamt that I saw her in the distance, running-no- _gliding_over the city landscape, hopping from one high-rise building to the next…"

She smirked, "Have you been watching too many anime's since the Helicarrier incident?"

He furrowed his brow, "What's an a-ni-meee?"

"It's a type of Japanese tv programme with carto- You know what, I'll show you tomorrow," she smiled crookedly and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose. "You were saying. A lady."

"I've been dreaming about her for years it seems. Everytime I dreamt of her, I thought it was an isolated dream, but it seems I've dreamt of her between every one of my memory cleanses… I never saw her face, but there was always that single mole…" His hand stroked over Natasha's arm and onto her neck, where he gently pressed her mole. "Right here. "

She let the words sink in, feeling the gravitas of his statement. "You dreamt of me…"

"I'm not sure why… maybe because you left a lasting impression. Maybe muscle memory… Or maybe my body just didn't want to forget yours," he said softly, stroking her cheek with the back of his hand.

"Vanya…"

"Nastya, I get the impression that you were the most important person in my life, and I want to find out why. I hope you'll let me."

"Vanya… things are complicated… you''re not ready to learn them all."

"You don't trust me," he stated.

She nodded. "I trust no one, Vanya… you know it's not personal.

"Of course," he acquiesced. "But will you help me understand my past?"

"Your past is but a facet." She nibbled on his shoulder, crawling on top of him, legs resting on either side of his hips, and her lips wandered up along his neck and onto his jaw. "Live in the now."

"Vanya," Natasha called his burn-phone a couple months later, "I must tell you something in person. Meet me at the usual time."

Natasha sat down in front of her computer and cracked her knuckles, stretching her hands and neck. Taking a deep breath, she switched her laptop on and began searching. She collected everything she had about Zhanna from her correspondence from her adoptive family, and from the clippings she had found and taken digital copies of. By the time a knock echoes through her apartment, Natasha set her black-rimmed glasses down and rubbed her eyes.

"It's open," she called, staring down at her desk, worry creasing her forehead.

The door clicked open, and Vanya strode in with a small box of chocolates, tucked under his arm. "I brought you your favo-" He froze at the sight of her. Her hands were jittery, and her body was hunched forward with worry, her hands resting in her hair, a position he had relearnt, meant distress. "What happened?"

He set the box down and rushed to sit beside her. "Did someone get hurt in your latest mission?"

She shook her head. "Nothing like that."

"Then what? Can I help? Can I do something?"

"James…"

"James? Since when do you call me Jam- "

"There's something I need you to know," she rasped, her throat constricting. She reached for her glass of cherry and downed it in one go.

"Liquid courage? It must be bad…"

"Vanya… I-I- I can't do this."

"What can't you do? You don't want to help me uncover more of the past? Is that it? I think I have enough to find out the rest myself, but you know that's not why I stayed-"

"We have a daughter."

_126,127,128,129,130,131…_ she counted the seconds in her mind waiting for him to unfreeze and react. But there wasn't even a twitch. Vanya sat frozen, staring straight ahead, away from her. The words were caught in his throat and his mind went on overdrive. It scoured over and over again for any indication that he had once known about this but forgotten, but he couldn't. There was nothing. There never had been.

"Vanya… please say something…"

Several minutes passed, and she willed him to turn his gaze upon her. "Damnit Vanya." She sighed getting up. Immediately a metal hand clasped around her wrist. "Vanya," she breathed, fear and excitement filling her abdomen once again.

"Did I… know?"

She shook her head. "You couldn't remember me, let alone understand how I was carrying a child all of a sudden. _Your_ child…"

He nodded thoughtfully, slowly acknowledging the events. "Wher-"

"A friend of mine adopted her. A former KGB officer, one of my friends from the red room… She started Widow training, but she didn't have the resilience and went to bureaucracy, and eventually immigrated to the United States to find a better life when it leaked that she was Jewish… She's the only one I trusted once you were gone… and she's been keeping me up to date ever since…"

"C-ca-"

She nodded immediately. "I have some things for you." She opened up her laptop and typed her password, eyeing him all the while, concern etched into his features. "Rebekah… the adoptive mother- sends me pictures of our daughter… Zhanna."

"Zhanna? Why that name?" he furrowed his brow, pulling his lips into a deeper frown as he stared at her still loading computer screen.

"It means 'God is gracious', just like 'Vanya'," she whispered after a long pause, smiling meekly and pulling up a file all about Zhanna on her laptop

"It's finally time to face our past."


	5. Chapter 5

Natasha climbed out of the driver's seat of her rental car, the flowing materials of her dress accenting her voluptuous figure, while misleading any spectators with its innocent floral design. A smirk played on her lips as she walked over to the passenger side and saw Bucky staring down at the metal hand that peaked out under his light blue shirt.

She yanked the door open, her dress shifting forcefully, and grinned. "Come on out, /James/, we're in the middle of suburbia. Their neighbours will notice if I have to drag you out of the car…"

He raised his eyebrows in response, but didn't answer as he rose; keeping their eye contact until his was a head taller than her. His eyes flickered, taking in the surroundings, motions sinuous, but with the edge of an inspection, like in their days in the KGB.

"Come this way. Rebekah lives in 1023."

He didn't shift, lips pressed together in a line. "Something isn't right."

She froze momentarily, and listened carefully, tensing in case of an attack. It was true that there were hardly any people on the street, but it was mid-afternoon and most people were still at work. The birds chirped carelessly, and the dog staring out of the window from the house towards which they were heading, wagged his tail happily, panting and barking at them.

At last, Vanya sighed, and rose, carefully shutting the car door with his flesh hand, having dented one too many car doors with his metal arm in the past. "Fine… Let's go." Natasha's head snapped back to him, as it dawned on her that he'd merely said that in order to have an excuse to leave. She pressed her lips into a thin line, and smacked him in the chest with her purse, which contained a small umbrella, red lipstick, mascara, widow's bite, a little gift for Zhanna, and two rounds of refills for the gun which was tied to her inner thigh.

"Come on. We don't have much time." She stalked off in front of him, her slender blue heels leaving a staccato trail, as they touch the cement slabs of Rebekah's driveway.

A long sigh left his lips before he followed her.

Natasha rang the doorbell, and made a face at Vanya, as the sound of some exotic bell rung out instead of a crisp ring.

"Is your friend an eccentric bird-lady by any chance?" Vanya murmured under his breath, clearly amused.

"She wasn't when I last met her…"

"Times change, don't they, lyubov moya?" His metal hand, tenderly snaked around hers, and squeezed carefully. "We're not meeting a child today, but a young woman," he whispered, gazing at her through the corner of his eye.

"Our dau-"

"Natalia!" a voluptuous woman exclaimed, as the door swung open. "It has been too long," she held her arms open for an embrace, her soft pink lips pulled into a great grin.

"Alexia, it has been too long," Natasha nodded, stepping forward to hug her old friend. Vanya blinked rapidly, straightening up in confusion. Natasha hardly ever let /him/ hug her when they weren't making love, let alone others.

"Here, they call me Alexis," the woman reprimanded, pulling away a little to place two kisses on each of her cheeks.

"Come in, Natalia! And you too, James, was it?" She finally released Natasha and appraised his face with interest, carefully looking between them. "I see she has your soulful eyes, James."

"She does?" he whispered, looking around, eyes scanning for people who may be eavesdropping.

"I see…you have only just retired from service... Come in, have something to drink. It will ease your nerves. You'll soon enough learn not to fear the people, once you live among those who do not intend to use others for… patriotic reasons," she chuckled, leading them into the living room.

Natasha's heel's clacked on the wooden floors, as she followed the soft tread of Alexia's house slippers. Behind her, Vanya looked around in awe. He had learnt much of his past, and much of his youth from the recordings and other seemingly authentic re-tellings from people he had apparently met in his childhood, but there was one thing he knew as a fact: he had never had a home like this. The walls were plastered with photo frames, each frame filled with different permutations of two women and a little red-headed girl, who with the progression towards the living room became a budding young woman. Every corner exuded warmth and happiness, whether it was the wedding photo of the two middle-aged women, or the proud graduation shot of Zhana, holding out her diploma in victory. Her dimpled cheeks and lop-sided smile won his heart immediately.

Natasha stopped, and took his flesh hand, into her own, smiling sadly at him. "I know it's overwhelming." They sat down on the couch, across from where Alexia had settled on her barcalounger.

"They'll be here soon," Alexia spoke softly, noticing how Vanya stared at the cuckoo-clock with interest.

"I wasn-"

"Its okay, to be nervous, James. She's your little girl, nothing will ever change that. Same to you, Natalia. We have raised her, loved her as if she was our own blood, but you were the one who gifted us with this precious girl. And we are so very proud of Jean."

"Jea-, is that the Anglicism you chose? Does she know her birth name?"

"She knows that she is adopted, and that her Russian name is Zhanna, but she grew up to prefer the nickname as her friends had difficulties with the Russian."

"It's hardly difficult," Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Of course, but children are quite cruel when they encounter things they aren't familiar with."

Bucky's eyes roamed the room, and focused on a hand-stitched image of a lady in white, dancing among the swans, her bright red hair, shining in the moonlight.

"Beautiful," he whispered, unconsciously leaning forward to take a closer look.

"She does have a talent with a needle," Alexia nodded, "And if I recall correctly, she has that from you, does she not?" She stared at Natasha, who was suddenly very preoccupied with her dress, her cheeks slightly warmer than they were before.

"You embroidered?" he asked in wonder, appraising her hands with new-found interest.

"Yes, yes… the red room taught me many useless skills."

"Useless? Pah! That's not what you said when you practically keened at the praise that Mistress Oblonsky gave you. You see, James, she was the best in her year, in absolutely everything but needlework, so she spent nights upon nights, secretly practicing on her pillow cases, until she had perfected it-"

"Mum! I'm home!"

Vanya tensed immediately, and Natasha shuffled closer automatically, her breathing hitching slightly as they turned to look at the doorway. The sound of luggage coming to a halt, and Rebekah's soft cussing as she hit her foot on the doorframe, faded into the backs of their minds, as a radiant 21 year old woman with bouncy red curls, bright brown eyes and a dimpled chin came running through the door, breathless and eager to hug Alexia.

Jean hurried to Alexia and hugged her tight, seemingly not noticing the two strangers sitting across from where they embraced. Vanya's grip on Natasha's hand tightened marginally, and Natasha couldn't help but turn to him and kiss his lips tenderly. "It's okay," she whispered in Russian.

"Erm… who're the guests?" Jean's bell-like voice rung in their ears.

"They are Natasha and James. They're family friends from when your mother and I were in Russia."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Jean beamed. "I'm-"

"-our daughter," Vanya answered helplessly.


	6. Chapter 6

Natasha stopped breathing, freezing in place, eyes darting to Zhanna. This wasn't how they had discussed it. He wasn't supposed to- she wasn't meant to kn- they had promised Alexis and Rebek-

Shit. Fucking shit.

She forced a strangled breath into her lungs, the strain tugging at the fibres of her mind.

Alexis moved her jaw uncomfortably, opening it, before snapping it shut again. What could she possibly say?

"Natasha!" Rebekah exclaimed walking through the door, beaming and heading straight for her old compatriot. "My sweet, Natasha! You seem to grow lovelier each time I set eyes you! How have you been? How is… ah, there you are, James! I have heard so much about you. Your star speaks so very fondly of you, ever since you first met, back in the training yard. Oh how she fawned," she chuckled throatily, her pale pink lips began curling upwards, only to falter again as the thin, tall woman with silver strands in her formerly jet-black hair, felt the tension in the air.

"What? Did someone die?"

"Jean?" James spokes hesitantly reaching out for her hand with his own flesh hand.

Jean stared at him for several more moments before pulling back, and throwing her head back in laughter. "Oh my God, you nearly had me going there. So serious and intense." She clutched her stomach, laughing so hard that she had to press the back of her hand over her mouth to gain some semblance of propriety.

"Wh-what's so funny, sweetheart? What did James say that's so hysterical?"

Bucky was lost for words. What could possibly be funny about his words? Had he not candidly admitted the truth of her parentage? Told her the truth about her entire life? How was that possibly funny?

Natasha gulped silently, and placed her arms around his, stroking his bicep soothingly and kissing his cheek.

"Your friend just said he's my dad," she wiped away tears of hilarity, and grinned. "I can't believe I nearly fell for it. They're like, what? Six, maybe seven years older than me? Wow, I'm such a moron. You nearly had me going there." Laughing she took a seat on the couch next to Alexis, and slung her arm around her mother.

"Right. Yes. I'm a joker," Bucky said softly, his head bobbing slightly at the words, his eyes unfocused on the air in front of her.

"My joker," Natasha amended, hiding her disappointment behind a beatific smile. "Jean, do you have a joker in your life? A man? Maybe a woman? You're such a, very pretty girl."

Jean shook her head, "I'm too busy with work right now. The life of a government scientist," she shrugged, "Always exciting, never restful. But then again, I signed up for it- and the money's really good."

"You're a scientist?" Natasha remarked in surprise. Zhanna certainly didn't get an aptitude for science from her side. Maybe Vanya… but he never mentioned scien- Maybe from before he became a part of the KGB…

"And what do you do… Natasha, was it?"

She snapped out of her trance and looked towards Zhanna in surprise. "Yes. Natasha. I – I'm a stunt director. That's how I met James. He was my teacher back in the academy. Everything I know, he taught me."

"And she taught me many other things in return," he said softly, not meeting her gaze. Natasha looked at him in surprise, staring as if the heartfelt words hung visibly in the air in front of him.

"Wow that sounds exciting. Have you guys done anything, I might have seen before?"

Take a look in the mirror, Bucky thought briefly, before banishing the thought.

"We mainly do stage-work. Theatre and Broadway. Like with the Spider-Man musical."

"Oh right! I really want to see that someday! It sounds like so much fun!"

"Maybe we can go to theatre together, if you want to, that is."

"Sounds amazing, Natasha. I'd love to. And we could head out to a bar afterwards. Have something to drink, and talk?"

"Maybe," Natasha smiled faintly, catching Vanya's eye.

As the afternoon progressed into evening, and the evening into night, Natasha and Bucky found themselves each with a glass of cherry in their hands, and a VHS of little Jean stealing bulbs from their Christmas tree, on Rebekah's flat-screen TV. "Kiddo, you were precious," Alexis intoned, taking another sip from her third glass, licking the rim of her glass appreciatively.

"Still is!" Natasha chimed, raising her glass.

"You'll make some nice kid really happy someday," Rebekah giggled. "You have your mother's bosom and her hidden frivolous spirit!" Rebekah pointedly looked in the direction of Natasha, who sat beside Alexis, and laughed, pounding the armrest of the sofa softly.

"Too much information, mum! I don't need to know about your sex-life!"

"My sex-li-? What does your mum have to do with my- Oh! Right!" She backpedalled quickly, realising her gaffe. "Won't happen again, baby. Don't want to scar you for life!"

"Better not!" Jean grinned, slowly taking the glass out of her adoptive mother's hand and setting it down. "I think you've drunk enough, mum. You don't want to screw up your liver. Vodka's already started ripping it to shreds according to Dr. Johnson."

"Pah! She's an old fool! I have a Russian liver! We are born suckling vodka from our mother's teat-"

"-and you were raised on spirits alone. I know, I know… You've told me a hundred times," Jean grinned, and pressed a kiss to her mother's forehead. She got up and suddenly clutched the armrest of the chair. "Wow… Maybe I've had too much to drink too… I think I'll go to bed… Nice to meet you guys…"

"How about we make sure, you actually get to bed, and don't walk into a wall-closet by mistake?" Bucky suggested, winking at Jean. "We've all done it before."

"Eh.. If you want, guys. Don't worry, I'm not bad enough to need you to hold my hair back."

"I wouldn't dream of suggesting it," Natasha retorted, hooking her arm with Jean, while Bucky hooked his with Zhanna's other arm.

"Let's get the doctor to bed."

Once Jean was fast asleep and sprawled on her bed, Bucky gently pulled the duvet over her, covering her up to her shoulders. His lips curled into a tender smile, as he beheld the young woman, his daughter, who looked as innocent as swan, and as dangerous as a burning flame. He slowly knelt down, moving her hair from her forehead, and pressed a single, tender kiss to it, allowing his lips to linger for a moment. He looked up as he felt the affectionate, yet firm, grasp of Natalia on his shoulder. Her mossy eyes glittered in the tube-light shining from the bathroom door, and she nodded, squeezing his shoulder ever so slightly. He turned once more to his daughter, and stroked her cheek dotingly. "We will always love you, malysh. Always."

A/N: "Malysh" means baby. Also, that's it folks! That's the end of the story! Please drop a review! Any and all comments are welcome, whether its criticism or anything else! I hope you enjoyed the ride.


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